CERN's Collaborative Management Model

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Failed Experiments = Learning Opportunity

People don't fail, experiments do. At CERN, failure is a valuable learning opportunity, not a cause to point fingers. Remarkably, after the explosion last September delayed experiments for a year, no one was fired.

It may seem that on a project of such great scale, there is no room for taking risks. But in truth, the project evolves through a natural process of experimentation and peer review.

For example, those running the ATLAS experiment and its counterpart, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), needed to make a very fundamental design choice in the early 1990s: what technology to use for the magnets. They did not commit to a decision and hope for the best. Failure at that level would definitely be disastrous. Instead, each experiment provided the budget for two or three teams to prototype different technologies in parallel. After numerous iterations, CMS and ATLAS made their final and very different bets based on years of designing, building, testing—and, yes, sometimes failing.

Although corporate executives do not always have the luxury to undertake multiple major developments in parallel, they can encourage a culture of small experiments and risk-taking early in the development process. Ultimately, this up-front investment begets a better end product and much less risk of a bigger failure later.

Share the Vision

The scientists at CERN are unrelentingly dedicated to a singular goal.

But surprisingly, because so many have contributed, it would be very difficult for anyone on the team to win the Nobel Prize. Regardless, thousands of experts manage to keep their egos in check and collaborate. They do so because they share a common yardstick for all decisions: What is the best choice for physics?

In business, this means having an ambitious yet attainable vision for the organization that is embraced by the grass roots and embodied by the leadership.

Of course, egos at CERN do clash. And there is spirited competition between ATLAS and CMS to be the first to discover the "Higgs particle." But the leaders avoid wasting energy on trying to control everything. Instead they focus on nurturing the right environment for innovation.

As I toured CERN, I was struck by the scale and complexity of the undertaking. But I was also struck by how simple, yet revolutionary, the approach to innovation seems. It's simple enough that we could all try it.

Thank you to Markus Nordberg, Robert Cousins, and George Brandenburg, who contributed to this column.

Krisztina Holly is vice-provost for innovation and executive director of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation at the University of Southern California. Holly is a serial entrepreneur with a B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to USC, she was founding executive director of MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation.

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